These are a few of my favorite things

So here it is, the first one for 2017. It is has been one year since I started doing these (with a little break while I was working on Gumnasia), but it has been fun creating them, and I hope you enjoyed them!

I can't stand trend predictions, they are usually so far off, and generally nobody is held accountable. (I would love to see these global trend companies post a list of 'where we were completely wrong in 2017' in December, but hey).

So here are three things, that I believe are valuable, important globally AND locally, and something I'll bet my teeth on.. well maybe not my actually teeth.. but I will do an audit in November and let you know if I was right, how about that?

So, thanks for reading. And keep sharing.

​Pierre

1. Rarity

Not the My Little Pony character, rather the condition of something that is hard to come by, in-frequent, or scarce.

In my opinion, anonymity is no longer truly possible, so the next best thing, is rarity.

Capitalism rewards the valuable, not the common. And we, our products, our brands, our organisations, are all too common, and easily accessible.

There is something very precious and awesome about limited edition, invite only, strict dress code, first come first serve, only 50 available, that we are missing.

So, the Q is, in a mass produced, instant, everything on demand world, how can we be rare? And still make a profit.. I suspect that is where the gold lies.

Rarity, the Pony..

2. Continued political 'entertainment'

With President Elect Donald Trump being inaugurated today, and 2016 filled with general fantastic, shocking one after the other political upheavals and surprises, we are in for a hell of a ride.

The general knee jerk reaction of the human race is too circle the wagons, and look inward. So I except a further splintering of cultures, and amplification of 'tribes' (ala Seth Godin). Not a growing homogenised, average, genderless middle, but a growing, sometime fierce and assertive, individuality.

I expect a rise in the self awareness industry (is there such a thing?), new avenues being created of searching for identity. And brands fighting fiercely to establish and grow their tribes.

3. Lean and mean

The most risky one I'll bet on, is the rise of minimalism, maybe not mainstream (if the mainstream still exists by November), but a love for minimal everything will grow.

Perhaps as an reaction to an unstable economy, political sphere. I suspect people will cash in, and live with as little as possible, ready to change (or flee?), at a moment's notice.

Minimal, frugal living, is perhaps the best thing that can happen to us anyway. My friend Len Sweet would say how do we do little, large? Hyper consumption and over indulgence hasn't been great to us now as a planet anyway, has it?